The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles remains the series’ best game, five years later
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, released worldwide in 2021, is a compilation of two Ace Attorney spin-off games originally released in Japan. The game follows Ryunosuke Naruhodo, a Japanese university student and rookie attorney on a study abroad journey to Victorian London. Immediately thrust into a high-stakes murder case, Naruhodo must defend a wealthy philanthropist accused of murder against prosecutor Barok van Zieks, infamously known as the “Reaper of the Bailey” for his track record of seeing every defendant he prosecutes meet a fatal end—regardless of guilt.
The collection combines The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures (originally released in Japan in 2015) and The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve (2017), presenting them as a prequel to the main Ace Attorney series. According to Polygon, the game has proven to be the strongest entry in the series even five years after its worldwide release, combining engaging storytelling with the franchise’s signature courtroom drama gameplay.
The narrative uses a fish-out-of-water premise—a Japanese law student navigating the Victorian English legal system—to create both tension and comedic contrast. The compilation brought these previously Japan-only releases to Western audiences, making the prequel’s story accessible to international fans of the Ace Attorney franchise.